The Crisis

Sweating through the oppressive summer of St. Louis, Stephen Brice feels cut off from the city's wealth and glamour until Mr. Richter opens his eyes to the German quarter south of Market Street. Beer gardens, churches, labor, and old-country traditions reveal a proud immigrant world, and Richter's passionate account of German history—from feudal oppression to the patriotism of Father Jahn and resistance to Napoleon—shows Stephen that these newcomers are forged by sacrifice and a fierce devotion to liberty. Richter's loyalty to America and the Union leaves Stephen with a new sense of the immigrant strength shaping the nation. That broadened vision propels Stephen into history when Judge Whipple sends him to deliver papers to Abraham Lincoln. His search carries him through a rough, skeptical Illinois landscape and into the crowded taverns of the campaign trail, where Lincoln first appears as a plain, awkward, smoke-filled-room politician with astonishing humor and storytelling power. As Stephen spends the day and night beside him, Lincoln's wit, warmth, and moral seriousness transform skepticism into admiration. Their conversations about slavery, the Union, and Douglas culminate in the journey to Freeport, where Stephen begins to understand the larger struggle for the nation's future. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.